the debt ceiling. and these automatic spending cuts that take hold at the beginning of march. they want to use these opportunities. they don't think it's so bad to shut down the government or to default on the debt. they are even skeptical of the administration's estimates of when that will happen. so they see themselves really having very little leverage besides doing something which a lot of americans would consider extreme which is defaulting on the debt or shutting down the government. now i think it's virtually impossible that speaker john boehner will raise the debt ceiling without commensurate spending cuts. he's way too far out on a limb on that prospect. so it's going to be one of these huge battles its going to be something where one side has to blink first or the issues have to kind of meld together in a way that speaker boehner or president obama has a fig leaf in order to get this done. >> woodruff: jake, what about the president's argument today? he said this several times. he said this is not about we're doing the debt ceiling in order to authorize more spending